….A DACA recipient who arrived in New York City in 2005 as a child from Mexico, [Antonio] Alarcón has been a longtime vocal immigration and community advocate and organizer. But he’s also part of a chunk of the population that is mostly excluded from the electoral conversation—despite representing about a seventh of the adult population—for the simple reason that they are noncitizens.
….Shortly after the last mayoral election, the city council passed a law to allow noncitizens with some type of work authorization to participate in local elections for mayor, council, and some other municipal positions. The reform would have affected permanent residents, work visa holders, people with Temporary Protected Status, DACA, and residents with some other types of legal status, with the idea that they should be able to weigh in on the local political matters that affected them most directly.
The law was meant to apply this year, massively expanding New York City’s electorate. But opponents of the law sued, and it was struck down by courts repeatedly, finally losing at the state’s highest court earlier this year and leaving a large group of would-have-been voters shut out once more….
City estimates put the number of noncitizens who’d have been affected by the reforms somewhere in the ballpark of 800,000 people, or roughly the entire population of San Francisco. They’re in every census tract in the city, with some neighborhoods like Corona in Queens or Sunset Park in Brooklyn featuring tracts that are 50 percent or more noncitizen…